Bring your sprues!

I thought buying less stuff, or buying second hand was a good idea. Asking friends for spare bits? Of course! Reduce, recycle and reuse. That was the plan.

Got some 20 years old goblin sprues from a stranger at the beginning of this year. After that, a friend helped me with the Flesh Eater Courts army by giving me all the spare bits he had (halberds & ghoul heads and arms). Another friend sent me Cities of Sigmar & Gorgers spare parts. It was like Christmas, but cheaper.

But if you remember my words from late December I decided to keep all the plastic waste so I could count how much it was in reality (not only sprues, but cut offs and sanding debris). So I took my nippers and started separating those bits and storing them appropriately. But I kept the sprues in a transparent bag... That wasn't big enough.

I was shocked when I realized I had a little plastic mountain under my desk that couldn't be recycled (and 3 pots of sprue goo that I gave to my friends).

Remember that for a brief lapse of time we thought our sprues could be recycled, but that was a mirage. GW started a Sprue Recycling Programme a year ago, but they are only taking care of the domestic plastic (and only a little part, because the program of sprue bins is only available in 28 UK stores). Maybe they will expand this to continental EU stores in the future, but I won't count on that. Meanwhile I'll assume that The Games Corporation doesn't matter if we fill the rest of the world's landfills with their plastic.

The conversation.

Have you ever stopped to think how big your plastic waste is every year? I'm not talking about your home's waste but your hobby waste. It's a lot. And don't get me started with the resin used in 3d printing going through the sink...

What's obvious here is that the only reasonable strategy is to stop buying stuff completely. Yeah, easier said than done. That means I should be dropping those new Darkoath we saw last week and the Skaven I've been waiting for 2 decades... That's going to hurt 🤕.

I'm still looking for uses for this stuff, but I'm out of plastic cement pots and my friends already have enough goo. If I can't find any other use I will eventually bring them to a recycling plant and pray for the best. Any suggestions?

Anyway, I forgot to show you this little plague monk I painted the last summer:

See ya!